The woolwas a Christmas gift from myself. I wanted to have some of these skeins for quite a while but was never able to decide for what colour I should go. When I saw the “forest oracle” I knew I did right to wait. It is a fantastic mixture of soft greens spotted with red dots once in a while. The quality is amazing – so soft and without any knots or other annoying stuff that minimizes the knitting experience. It was running through my fingers and the smell was lovely. I bought three skeins for this scarf – just to be on the safe side – but needed only two, which is great! Now I have enough left for some mittens and maybe even a hat.

The pattern is a very easy one. Even though you can knit this scarf easily during your tv evenings, every step is described in detail and has even pictures for a better understanding. I haven’t changed a thing.

Before going back to Germany in a few weeks, I wanted to see two things. One of them were the hippos in St. Lucia. Ever since I first heard of this small town, which has just six streets and that home to not only residents and tourists, but also hippos, I was tempted to book a trip. It’s 1,500 kilometres from Port Elizabeth to St. Lucia, hence a weekend trip was not really possible. A weekend would have just been enough for the journey itself. But since I have been raving for weeks about the fact that there really is a place where hippos are completely free roaming and live in harmony with humans, it was relatively quickly decided where this year’s Christmas trip would go.

If you drive into the city after two days of travelling, you will see numerous warnings and signs: Attention, hippos live here. Be careful when you’re on your way after dark. Have flashlights with you. Our hostel mum immediately underlines the fact that these signs are to be taken seriously. The fact that our holiday preparations didn’t reach far enough to pack a flashlight made her forehead curl. Well, then we won’t be able to go to the restaurant in the evening. Or we can drive the car, which is actually ridiculous in view of the road density. There are hardly any incidents in which a person has been harmed, but we do not want to risk surprising a grim pachyderm at night. The fact that the cosy companions rise out of the river in the evening to graze in the city park or open front gardens is not a myth, but a nocturnal reality. One evening we could see a hippo mom and her calf stomping through the city park. I’d rather keep a safe distance. Nevertheless, in the first few days we went straight to a boat to see them in their natural environment. Also on the banks of the river you can see a lot of warnings. The river is not only home to hundreds of hippos, but also to Nile crocodiles and even sharks. Sharks living in a river was news to me, but it’s because the river has not been connected to the sea for years, and the sharks were trapped. If you decide to go on such a tour, you should be a bit picky. We were on a small boat with a total of ten guests . You could chat with the guides and ask them to turn the boat around to get a better light for taking pictures. While we were able to ask all sorts of questions, we were overtaken by gondolas, which easily had six times as many tourists on the boats and on which a corresponding crowd arose as soon as a hippopotamus or a crocodile in sight. Sure, we were warned that our tour would be expensive. But a short research has shown that the difference in price is only five euros – which I will gladly add if I get a comfortable tour for it.

To see the hippos would have made me happy enough to consider this holiday a success. But I didn’t know what else the corner has to offer. So we went on tour one evening to see the leatherback turtle, which lays its eggs here during the South African summer months. The tour starts at seven o’ clock in the evening and ends sometime between one and two in the morning. Why? Well, the beach chosen by the turtles is located at Cape Vidal, about thirty kilometres from St. Lucia. The only way to the cape is through a game park. You spend the first kilometres looking for wildlife in the last evening sun. We were really very lucky with that. The first hippos and rhinos were on the way and even a leopard trotted a few meters in front of our car. This time, however, I was particularly impressed by the small animals we encountered. Never before had I seen free-living porcupines, bush babies or even pygmy chameleons. I had never seen the latter anywhere before. It is a mystery to me how our driver saw this little creature in the pitch-black night out of the driving car. But all of a sudden he stopped, got out of the car and got a branch that he showed me. It took me a while until I saw the little creature that was as big as my half index finger. Unfortunately, we were less lucky with the turtles. Once we arrived at Cape Vidal, the tour continued for another twelve kilometres along the beach. Meanwhile the night was pitch black. Thick clouds had not let any starlight through and even a thirty-second attempt to take a picture of the beach resulted in me being the proud owner of a picture full of black noise. Finding an egg-laying turtle in this darkness is of course a challenge. Even if it is two and a half metres long and can weigh 700 kilograms. Despite all our efforts, we have only found one nest. But all right, that’s nature.

A few of the rainy days we had spent in the game parks. The western and eastern shore parks are nearby. In the latter it is even possible to hike, which we did one morning. But not without taking a trained guide with us. In order to avoid the greatest dangers, walking is only allowed in a small part of the park. It is separated by a grid. This prevents large animals such as elephants, rhinos or buffaloes from getting through and surprising hikers. Smaller animals, however, can easily reach the other side. Smaller animals also include leopards, something I realized when we stumbled over leopard tracks that couldn’t be older than an hour. ‘Sure, they’ll come on the other side. But don’t worry, you rarely see them and they won’t hurt you.’ our guide Greg laughed at us when we hesitantly asked if we should run. At least we only saw the tracks. Despite Greg’s confidence, I wanted to avoid a clash with a leopard. I doubt that I would have stayed calm. I felt safer in our car later. At least as far as the animals are concerned. The weather had turned some of the roads into rivers, so we were afraid to get stuck in the mud. That this was not an unjustified concern as we could witness later when we saw a car from a hill trying to free itself from one of the rivers. In any case, we were lucky to have made it out of the 4×4 corner in time, to watch the animals from a little less vulnerable tarred road.

We spent the sunny days by the sea. Especially at Cape Vidal you can snorkel wonderfully. The water is clear and even close to the shore you can see colourful fish and corals. However, the current is incredibly strong. Even in places where I can still stand and the water only reaches my navel, the rip current can pull you out to the sea without any problems. Tourists who underestimate the force of the water are regularly lost here. That’s why we only dare to snorkel on a small part of the cape, where old wreck pieces and large stones weaken a big part of the current. Even here it was teeming with small fish. To see some bigger animals, we went to Sodwana Bay for a day, because you can go to the sea to snorkel not only in knee-deep water. Sodwana Bay is a diving paradise! You only have to travel a few kilometres out to the sea to find a huge reef where all kinds of colourful fish and even turtles romp around. In addition, whale sharks roam there on their way back from the north. Of course, I would have loved to see a whale shark, because I have had it on my bucket list for a while. Though we had no luck with it, but a swarm of dolphins visited us while snorkeling. At first I thought that they just stopped by for a moment, but they stayed with us for almost half an hour, curiously looking at us and checking out if we swim just as fast. I won’t forget that day of my life.

Once a month there is the Food Truck Friday in the Baakens Valley and from four in the afternoon you can fill your belly with various delicacies. But you have to be fast since the first one’s there will also be the first one’s served. Even though the Food Truck is open until nine in the evening not all of the Truck owners are prepared to feed hungry mouths until the evening. So if you turn up at eight, like I did, it can happen that your choice will be diminished. At least vegetarian curries can’t be enjoyed at that time anymore. But luckily it is different, if you are not a vegetarian. The South Africans love their braai and their Biltong so that you can be almost sure that their will be enough until the very last minute of the evening. Also pizzas and burgers, sweets and drinks are plenty. The mood is cheered up by musicians: Either singers sing live or DJs put on some music. There are jumping castles for the little ones and shopping opportunities for the bigger ones. In a small plant near the trucks porcelain, clothes, shoes and jewelry is sold. And the best thing: all of the venders are locals. So with a purchase you don’t support big chains. One reason more to spend a nice evening here.

Like this:

We have done it before – snorkelling with seals in Plettenberg Bay. It is an amazing experience! We had to do it again. Twice. At the moment there are so many curious cubs in the water and they all are so playful. Some of them are shorter than my leg. In the water they don`t fear you. On the contrary – they play in the water next to you and sometimes they come to you as if they ask you to play with them. It is marvellous!